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Third-grade students at a California elementary school recently learned a lesson in activism while campaigning to free an orca whale, which is confined to a tank that some say does not meet the standards of the Animal Welfare Act. The lesson aimed to connect the life-sciences curriculum with a high-interest topic, teacher Alice Geske said.

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Como Park Zoo and Conservatory in St. Paul, Minn., hosts second- and third-grade students for hands-on life-sciences lessons through its residency program. Each morning for a week, students visit the zoo to engage in lessons, such as how to apply the scientific method to develop an "enrichment" activity for the animals and observe how the animals react to the activity.

Third-grade teacher Alycia Zimmerman has long debated whether homework is worth the effort. In this blog post, she reveals several "homework problems" and solutions she has found to make homework manageable for herself, students and families.

Some educators in Arizona say they have been preparing to follow a new state law that requires third-grade students to meet certain benchmarks in reading or be held back starting in the fall of 2014. To help students improve and meet requirements, teachers say they have been focused on one-to-one learning, fluency lessons and engaging with professional learning communities.

Scientists and documentary filmmakers are scheduled to depart in the fall on a search for a yet-unseen whale, possibly a hybrid between the fin and blue whale, which has been heard on recordings for decades. The whale has been dubbed "the loneliest whale in the world" because its vocalizations were in a much higher range than any other whale species and researchers never heard a return call. "We never had a visual. We don't know what species it is. We don't know if it has a malformation. Obviously, it's healthy. It's been alive all these years. Is he alone? I don't know," said research team member Mary-Ann Daher.

The National Council for the Social Studies and other organizations have been working for the past three years to develop a national social studies framework -- an initiative that seeks to ensure social studies education is not left on the back-burner as more national attention centers on science, technology, engineering, math, reading and language arts. The College, Career and Civic Life (C3) Framework for Social Studies State Standards is expected to be released in August.